You are Well Below Par(go)

Unbelievable. That’s the word for it. An out-of-the-blue win for the Cavs, after losing leading scorer Kyrie Irving to injury. Jeremy Pargo, first of all, deserves most of the credit for the win. This third-string point guard, this young, unproven player who Byron Scott only promoted to starter the day of the game, showed some serious offensive chops. He hit jumpers from all over the floor, got to the rack with ease, and set up his teammates fairly well all game. Final stats: 28 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists. He also played great defense, going hard in man-on-man D when matched up with Jrue Holiday or Evan Turner and racking up a steal and a few tipped balls. The other, less surprising, star of this game was Anderson Varejao. He locked down the post, grabbed nineteen boards (7 offensive!) and was generally awesome as usual. Dion Waiters played alright, if inefficiently. He only shot 7-22 from the field, but Dion also put up 6 assists to 2 turnovers and played solid defense. However, the Cavs have had some great individual performances this year in losses. Remember the game in Brooklyn? What made this one different was the bench. C.J. Miles and co. had their best performance of the year by far. Details later. Some bullet points on the game:

- Jeremy Pargo could be the backup point guard the Cavs have been looking for. Obviously we can’t expect him to score like this on a nightly basis, but anything near this type of offensive punch might be just what the Cavs need off the bench when Kyrie comes back. His jumper was clearly falling tonight (4-8 on 3-pointers) at an unsustainable rate, but that’s not really what matters. He was getting to the hole with remarkable consistency against a solid defensive team, and an athletic backcourt. That type of penetration led to open shots on the perimeter for the Cavs all night, and it made a huge difference for the second unit. The open 3-pointers were a world apart from the contested fade-aways that the Cavs had been getting with Donald Sloan on the floor. Let’s hope Pargo keeps it up.

- C.J. Miles may have just broken out of his slump in a big way. The release on his jumper still seems a little slow, but he was hitting it with regularity tonight, and he looked much more comfortable in the offense. If his perimeter play can remain close to this for the rest of the season, the team will be helped tremendously. Omri Casspi also looked decent, though he’s clearly still dealing with some shaky nerves. He seemed to lack confidence in his dribbling and shooting. In short, he played much like I did on the 7th grade basketball team. Needless to say, I played sparingly. As does he. I think that Byron Scott hasn’t been entirely fair in his treatment of Casspi, and while Kyrie is out, I would like to see him get some actual run.

- Tristan Thompson was pretty awful, unfortunately, but his line wasn’t anything remotely surprising. He rebounded well, played solid defense, and shot 1-7 from the field. We won, so I’ll try and keep this positive. He made 2-3 free throws! Someone call Rick Barry! Tyler Zeller was slightly worse, but I think he wore his gas-mask a little more jauntily than Tristan, so props to him. Any ideas for nicknames as long as they still both have the masks?

- Alonzo Gee dropped 14 points and shot 5-9 from the field, 4-6 from 3-point range, and played some truly spectacular defense. in particular, there was a fastbreak block that needs to be seen to be believed. Really, exactly the kind of game Chris Grant payed him for. If he can keep putting up numbers like this, and playing defense the way he does, we can all pretend like we’ve never heard of Nicolas Batum before.

I would love to see stats on percentage of shots at the rim that get blocked for all PFs. TT has to lead the league by a wide stretch. If he could finish around the rim, he would be an animal. 16-10 every night. You can see he is working hard to get better. I hope he figures out how to finish.

Hot Sauce,
Check out hoopdata.com. Click on “Player Stats”, then scoring. You can sort for a variety of stats, including blocked percentage (I guess not specifically ‘at the rim’ though).

Through 11/17, there were 68 power forwards you had played at least 5 games and 10 minutes per game. Tristan has been blocked on the second-highest percentage of his shots. Lou Amundson has been worse.

I’m sorry but ANY discussion that one has about TT being blocked so frequently absolutely has to mention his compete and utter lack of “getting any calls.” I am not excusing TT’s questionable finishing skills, in fact I think that very thing that is contributing to him not getting any calls! Talk about a vicious cycle!

Last night was an awful night for the refs. Even writers like Amico tweeted as such. Maybe the writers here think this is a useless topic but I think it at least deserves mentioning. Also, Dion can’t buy a call either. Gets smacked on the arm/elbow 17 ft. From the basket, lands on his backside due to the force of said foul and an air ball results. The ref swallows his whistle. I can think of AT LEAST a half-dozen such obvious blown calls last night…not to mention the whole ridiculous Andy tech fiasco…

KJ, can you link your blog where your highly opinionated comments are posted ad nauseuml? I understand the writers on your blog make valid posts that you value more than the writers on this blog do. I’m very eager to have access your blog for more in depth Cavs coverage. Thanks!

Kj,
Actually, of those same 68 power forwards, Tristan shoots the 10th MOST free throws per field goal attempt.

Of 57 shooting guards meeting the same criteria, Dion shoots the 30th most FTA/FGA. He’s still getting to the rim a ton though…7th most per 40 minutes of that group. Your argument seems to hold up there.

The Andy no-call / tech was ridiculous last night (in addition to Dion’s 0 fta’s. Also, last night’s game was not included in the hoopdata stats that have Dion as below average for getting to the free throw line. Now he is definitely waaaay below average.)

Kevin, that kind of data in and of itself cannot accurately tell us whether TT is getting calls, can it? He should be in the top 5 then because does any other PF in the league shoot as much right around the bucket as TT? I’m guessing few do. I understand we’re getting into a subjective area here but I suppose that’s inevitable when the refs themselves are so subjective. I just know that even McCloud and co. on last night’s broadcast replayed and pointed out a specific play where TT got fouled so obviously that they felt compelled to replay it again and again…

Having said that the numbers you referenced for Dion are even more shocking than I would’ve thought they were. Kinda wish Scott would stick up for his SG a little more in games to the refs…though that has never been his style, to be fair…

I do not like this alternate universe where the youngsters are hurt and struggling and Jeremy Pargo is our best player and CJ Miles has a J in his name and Dion Waiters does not have a J in his name :(

The Lineup: (Click for Author’s Archive)

Nate Smith is an Associate Editor. He grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and moved to NE Ohio in 2000. He adopted the Cavs in 2003 and graduated from Kent State in 2009 with a BA in English. He can be contacted at oldseaminer@gmail.com or @oldseaminer on Twitter.

Tom Pestak is an Associate Editor. He's from the west side of Cleveland and lives and (mostly) dies by the success and (mostly) failures of his beloved teams. You can watch his fanaticism during Cavs games @tompestak.

Robert Attenweiler is a Staff Writer. Originally from OH, he's long made his home in NYC where he writes plays and screenplays (www.disgracedproductions.com) some of which end up being about Ohio, basketball or both. He has also written for The Classical and the blog Raising the Cadavalier. You can contact him at rattenweiler@gmail.com or @cadavalier.

Benjamin Werth is a Staff Writer. He was born in Cleveland and raised in Mentor, OH. He now lives in Germany where he is an opera singer and actor. He can be reached at blfwerth@gmail.com.

Cory Hughey is a Staff Writer. He grew up in Youngstown, the Gary, Indiana of Ohio. He graduated from Youngstown State in 2008 with a worthless telecommunications degree. He can be contacted at theleperfromwatts@yahoo.com or @coryhughey on Twitter.

David Wood is our Links Editor. He is a 2012 Graduate of Syracuse University with an English degree who loves bikes, beer, basketball, writing, and Rimbaud. He can be reached on Twitter: @nothingwood.

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John Krolik is the Editor Emeritus of Cavs: The Blog. At present, he is pursuing a law degree at Tulane University. You can contact him at johnkrolik@gmail.com or @johnkrolik.

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